Malaga coach defends doping

BERLIN -- Former West Germany midfielder Bernd Schuster has defended doping in football when it's used to speed up recovery from injury.

Schuster, currently coach of Spanish side Malaga, tells the Sport Bild magazine, "As long as it's purely for regeneration, I don't have a problem with it. If a player is fit again two, three weeks quicker after an injury, then it even makes sense."

Schuster says he is against doping to improve performances "but rather to bring (a player) back to his level as quickly as possible."

The 53-year-old, who played for Barcelona and Real Madrid in the 1980s, says doping wasn't an issue when he was a player "because the word, as we know it today, didn't exist. We all took something. No stimulants in the classical sense."